I have never been comfortable with any particular political ideology, and find no home with any party.  Maybe this is has its roots in my being wary about joining groups, but I’d like to think it is the wisdom of age that makes me realise that opinions and stands evolve with age and experience, and that what might have been true for me twenty, or even ten years ago, may not be true to me now.

A back-story to the next paragraph; I forget what the conversation was about and I think it was when I was 13 or 14, but I remember exactly where my mother and I were standing in the kitchen.  I was standing in the doorway to the dining room, and she was in front of the stove, stirring some pot on the right front burner.  And Mum said to me,

‘You’re a liberal thinker.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘You’re a free thinker.’

And that’s what I always thought a Liberal was, someone who was not beholden to any ideology; someone who investigated all sides of an issue before coming up with an informed opinion.  Therefore I am flummoxed that ‘Liberal’ has become a dirty word in American politics, and a sign of a wet in British politics.  From what I have been able to garner from my meagre political sleuthing, a liberal is actually what a Conservative should be.  Thoughtful, inquisitive, tempered by reason, prudent and deliberative.   Actually, what anyone entrusted with governance should be.

So I find myself picking and choosing what I like from across the political spectrum.  Social liberal, fiscal conservative.  Don’t spend more than you have, though some debt keeps the economy afloat.  There’s no reason wealthy countries can’t afford universal health care and high standards of education (the train wreck of the Britain’s NHS notwithstanding).  Having independent watchdogs on finance, law, and business, and generally teaching people to fish rather than giving them fish.  But also making sure that those folk who cannot rightfully hold the fishing pole are taken care of.

I’m sure that makes for a political muddle which is why I should probably never be allowed near public office.  But I have always believed that public service is a noble endeavour, and particularly when I worked for the U.S. government.  When I became a lowly civil servant, I was made to take the same oath that any U.S. President takes on Inauguration Day:

I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

I always let the God bit slip, because it was my word, not God’s, and if I couldn’t adhere to the oath, God would be no use.  Anyway, I was rendering unto Mammon.  God wasn’t innit.

Perhaps all this is naïve of me.  But at my cousin’s home in New Hampshire four years ago, I saw this and it made me think of the America my father had come to and served in the US Navy for in 1944, and why he was so disappointed in America before he died.  I and my mother were far more sceptical, but my father believed in America.

I posted what is below in another forum this afternoon.  I’ve always thought politics was highly entertaining.  I never thought it would become farce.

Bearing in mind that, what has struck in the past few weeks as America lurches from crisis to chaos is that Senator McCain has evinced the same contempt for the American electorate as the Bush/Cheney/Rove cabal has shown in the past eight years. 

·         Pretending to suspend his campaign

·         Picking Palin as a sop to the Hillary voters

·         Parading the Palin family in the public eye, then crying "foul!" when the press goes after them

·         Gunning for televising Barstool Palin's shotgun wedding before the election

·         Grandstanding in DC while the economy tanks and saying, well, nothing, because none of his seven houses face foreclosure

·         Gunning for drilling when he knows damn well the pumps won't see a drop for at least 10 years

·         Touting Palin's foreign policy creds because Alaska's next door (maybe she can fix this Wall St. mess, she lives next to an ATM?)

How can he believe people swallow this stuff?  I don't want a maverick in the White House, thank you, it's time that job was given to a grown-up.  And I don't want someone "just like us" an old man's heartbeat away from the job.  I want someone whose bar is higher, A LOT higher, and McCain’s standards are so patently low.  Sarah Palin has the intellect of a doorknob, and that's exactly how McCain is using her; as a doorknob to the Oval Office. 

A doorknob with lipstick, sheesh, can these people be serious?

My vote's in.